Your choices so far:
1 Electricity; 2 Electricity
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | 2 Electricity |
| Biomass (solid) | 1 Electricity | Process cooling (< 0 °C) |
| Geothermal | Fuel: Gaseous | Process heat/steam (50 - 150 °C) |
| Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| Water | Fuel: Solid | Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
Electricity is the king of energy carriers and should be treated with due respect.
Electricity shall in the first instance be used for
- Mechanical work such as needed for lawn-mowing, pumping, fanning, compressing as well as evacuating or to run escalators, lifts and alike. In the longer run, this will also include transportation.
- Illumination.
- Operation of home electronics, computers, for communication devices and such.
- To obtain cryogenic/freezing as well as extremely high temperatures.
- For electrochemical operations such as electrolytic plating and alike.
- For operations and processes where the added value from the cleanliness, the simplicity and the precision of process control can be judged to override the thermodynamic arguments against it.
The last group includes such processes as home cooking. From a thermodynamic point of view cooking could just as well be done on wood stoves – but...
Climate control using AC-units also falls within the last category and it does so because the district heating and cooling distribution systems in many cities and municipalities are still insufficient. However; once these grids are expanded, then should the AC-units be replaced by heat exchangers. For the house owners the system will still be just as clean, silent and easy-to-control, but from a societal point of view such a replacement will mean that electricity consuming devices are replaced by a system solution providing electricity production instead.
There are also a number of industrial processes in the last category where the use of electricity is not necessary from a process point of view and where the technical development during the last few decades already makes the replacement of electricity not only possible but advantageous and profitable.
When the main aim of the energy supply is to sell electricity to those customers that really needs it, then a thorough investigation and mapping of the real needs should also be included in the contracting process.
When the main aim of the energy supply is to produce and sell electricity to those customers that really need and fully appreciate it, then only large-scale production will be of interest. The technologies to be considered then become: 1-hydroelectricity, 2-wind-power, 3-solid or digestible biomass in large-scale CHP or tri-generation plants.